“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
- Jack Kornfield
A study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that people who have negative beliefs about self-compassion are less likely to practice mindfulness. This results in the ineffective use of coping strategies and self-improvement techniques during challenging situations.
This research was conducted by Christina Chwyl, a research coordinator originally from Stanford University, Patricia Chen, an Assistant Professor from the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore, and Associate Professor Jamil Zaki from Stanford University.
Self-compassion is the encompassing practice of self-kindness, mindfulness, and a sense of common humanity. Consistent usage of this habit improves the ways in which people respond and cope with emotional challenges.
However, many people are unable to practice this habit because of their negative beliefs about self-compassion leading to irresponsibility, indulgence, and complacency. This ultimately prevents people from being able to cope effectively during challenging situations and improve themselves overall.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate how negative beliefs about self-compassion impact self-compassion practices, thereby affecting people’s adaptive coping and self-improvement techniques.
A series of studies were completed to examine the extent to which participants’ negative beliefs about self-compassion were linked to their self-compassion practices and their overall coping and self-improvement strategies. Studies 1 and 3 were done while measuring participants’ responses to hypothetical emotional challenges. Study 2 was done using a real-world situation. `
In Study 1, three emotionally challenging situations were presented to the participants. Their measures of negative self-compassion beliefs, motivations to practice self-compassion, coping techniques, and intentions to self-improvement were measured for each scenario.
The participants were asked to imagine three scenarios and then report their answers on a set of measures after each scenario. The first hypothetical situation was to pretend to not have studied enough for a critical test, resulting in a failing grade. The second scenario was to imagine having forgotten to call a grandparent back, only to find out afterwards that he/she had passed away. Finally, participants were asked to imagine being in the middle of a performance where they suddenly forget their lines and cause the entire production to stop.
Results displayed that all three hypothetical scenarios were in fact effective at inducing negative emotions in the participants. The self-compassionate responses indicated that negative self-compassion beliefs negatively correlated with intentions of being self-compassionate.
In addition, the higher the participants’ self-compassionate intentions were, the more positively they employed adaptive coping and self-improvement strategies. Examples include increased problem-focused coping, more emotion-focused coping, decreased avoidant coping and better self-improvement intentions.
Overall, participants who had more negative beliefs regarding self-compassion reported a decreased likelihood of reacting to emotionally difficult scenarios with self-compassion. This was in turn associated with a lower likelihood of reporting the usage of effective adaptive coping techniques and overall decrease in self-improvement intentions.
In Study 2, results were replicated using American participants who were unhappy about the results of the 2016 federal election. This correlational study showcased that the more robust participants’ negative self-compassion beliefs were, the less compassionate they were towards themselves when coping with their negative emotions post-election.
These results replicated those of the previous study. The less self-compassionate people were, the less adaptive coping strategies they used and the lower their self-improvement intentions were.
In Study 3, positive or negative beliefs about self-compassion were inflicted on participants in order to measure how that would affect the participants’ intentions to engage in self-compassion 5-7 days post emotionally challenging events. The results of this study showed that people’s self-compassion belief systems can be changed after an induction event that may last up to 7 days. As well, it was found that inducing a different set of beliefs can in fact improve how participants respond to emotional difficulties.